My
attention was diverted at this moment by my having to make way for a lady
with a great many flounces, before me, to give up her chair to a rustling
friend to whom she had promised it; when I again looked across at the
lady in white muslin, she was drawing in a very goodly pile of gold with
her little blue-gemmed claw. Good luck and bad, at the Homburg tables,
were equally undemonstrative, and this happy adventuress rewarded her
young friend for the sacrifice of his innocence with a single, rapid,
upward smile. He had innocence enough left, however, to look round the
table with a gleeful, conscious laugh, in the midst of which his eyes
encountered my own. Then suddenly the familiar look which had vanished
from his face flickered up unmistakably; it was the boyish laugh of a
boyhood's friend. Stupid fellow that I was, I had been looking at Eugene
Pickering!
Though I lingered on for some time longer he failed to recognise me.
Recognition, I think, had kindled a smile in my own face; but, less
fortunate than he, I suppose my smile had ceased to be boyish. Now that
luck had faced about again, his companion played for herself--played and
won, hand over hand. At last she seemed disposed to rest on her gains,
and proceeded to bury them in the folds of her muslin.
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